KALAMAZOO — One Monday evening last May, a beaten but brave 11-year-old girl escaped from the Sugrim home to neighbors.

They called police.

“That is the moment: That was the first time the police had been involved and knew about any of the abuse in our family,” Bernadette Sugrim said of the incident in an interview with the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Bernadette Sugrim interview

“No one expected anything like that and I knew the way Brian was. I knew he would never let us live with getting the police involved," she said. "I told the cop, ‘If you don’t take him into custody, he will kill us all before the night is through.'”

Besham Brian Sugrim trained his family in martial arts every Monday evening, but on May 16, 2011, he was more concerned that his daughter learn how to control their dog.

Besham, Bernadette and their son were still training that night when Kalamazoo County sheriff's deputies arrived at the door and took Besham away.

“I think we’d still be in that house if (she) didn’t run away,”
Bernadette said of her daughter, adding that she and the children never slept
in that house again. “I’m just being honest. I really felt like I had no
alternative.”

That night, at the hospital where her daughter was being treated, Bernadette spilled the family's dark secrets to police. Her husband had confessed to her several years earlier, she said, to killing Linda Kay Gibson, a Kalamazoo prostitute whose battered body was found in 2003. He had admitted, too, to killing a man in his parents' New York state home in 1996, she told police.

Besham Sugrim pleaded no contest to assaulting his daughter and was sentenced last July to 56 months to 10 years in prison. A judge on Monday denied his request to withdraw his plea.

"My biggest fear was that there would be some loophole that would let him get out," Bernadette said of her husband's prison sentence for assaulting their daughter.

"When I first talked to (the lead investigator) I told him I’m terrified to say anything, because if he gets out he will find me and kill me. He’ll hunt down every member of my family and he will torture them. I’d live in that fear forever.

"This was the only verdict that could happen that I’m able to feel comfortable knowing he will stay there for the rest of his life," she said of the murder conviction.

"My fear was that he would be deported and that’s what he would have wanted to happen," she said of Besham, who in an illegal alien from Guyana. "Then he would find his way back. I have no doubt he’d find a way back.”

She said she has received 60 letters from Besham while he has been behind bars. She doesn’t know how he continues to reach her, but the last letter came three days before his murder trial, she said.

Recovering

Bernadette Sugrim is now the head of her household for the first time. She said she has been honest with her children throughout the legal process and often talks with them about their struggles. She and her two children are all seeing counselors.

But it surprises her how well her son and daughter are doing, she said.

“I want them to remember the good things. I don’t want them to completely shut their dad from their life,” she said. “There are academics he was pushing them on. I fear that I’m not capable of holding that up … it sounds stupid. They are so smart; I wonder if I can teach them.”

She said she hopes her 9-year-old son realizes doing evil things is not a trait, but a personal choice that comes with consequences, which is why his father is in prison.

She said her son has changed dramatically in the past year, but is healing. He still holds onto a box of his father’s things.

“I encourage him not to let go. I don’t want to break his spirit,” Bernadette said. “He was dad’s little soldier. He did everything to please his dad. Until he finds another person to look up to in that same sense, that’s always going to be there.”

Bernadette said she hopes to eventually find a person who can show her kids "what a good husband and father should be like."

She never wants to talk to Besham again.

“There’s only one thing I have to do and that’s the divorce, and I’m working on that one,” Bernadette said.

She said she hopes sharing her story gives other women living in similar circumstances confidence to speak up.

Bernadette recalled meeting the jurors after the trial and one of them referring to her as a hero. The comment did not sit well.

“That’s a rough thing for me to accept. I’m not a hero. I told the truth. In fact, I didn’t do anything for eight years; that doesn’t make me a hero," she said. "(My daughter) is the hero. She went to police. She got help. I felt stuck.”

Bernadette Sugrim Interview 5Bernadette Sugrim talks about moving on. She hopes that sharing her story will give other women living in similar circumstances will give them the confidence to reach out for help.

Testifying before a jury helped her get over her stage fright, she said, which is convenient because she plans to start speaking and singing in public. She wants to talk about child abuse and what happened to her, she said, and has already written a song about her experiences.

“I know it happens to a lot more kids than it seems and a lot of people
are afraid to tell — I know I was — so I’ve been talking to family and
friends about making people aware that they need to tell someone if
things are happening to them,” she said.

She was the last of 50 students to audition for a school talent show and the first to get a call-back, she gushed. She plans to sing Christina Aguilera's “Beautiful.”

Being called a hero is overwhelming, but she said it makes her feel happy.

Bernadette recalled sitting her son and daughter down to tell them about the guilty verdict. She said her son's first response was to grasp his sister’s hand.

“He said, ‘I want to thank you for doing what you did that day and for being brave. Now, none of us have to be afraid anymore.'"